Octopus Overlords

These are the Proud Boys currently in Downtown Philly.

Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried called on Gov. Ron DeSantis Sunday to denounce “neo-Nazis” who demonstrated during a conservative students event.

Fried made the call to action during a press conference at the Tampa Convention Center to formally condemn a group of people who bore white supremacist symbols outside the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit Saturday.

...

Sunday morning, U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, D-Florida, issued a statement condemning the actions as well, calling them a neo-Nazi demonstration.
Deputies shoot, kill armed man after standoff at Tampa apartment complex

“The reprehensible anti-Semitic hate and neo-Nazi demonstrations on display this weekend have no place anywhere in our state,” he wrote. “Over the last year, Florida has seen a rise in anti-Semitic hate — anti-Semitic flyers left at hundreds of Florida homes, neo-nazi demonstrations in Orlando, and now neo-nazi flags waving outside a prominent Republican convention. To date there’s been little to no response or condemnation from Governor Ron DeSantis. It’s reprehensible.”

Meanwhile, Turning Point USA, which represents conservative student activists, also condemned the group’s actions and said they had nothing to do with it. According to its statement, several students with the event even confronted the demonstrators themselves.

“We have no idea who they are or why they’re here,” the statement said. “They have nothing to to with TPUSA, our event, or our students. After some students initially confronted these individuals, they made a mature decision and vacated the space. Once that happened, they left.”

malchior wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 10:26 am Fun how DeSantis just stayed silent. Also fun how Turning Point called the decision to leave 'mature'. It's a half-heart beat from 'It's just free speech'.

gilraen wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 11:16 am This is some horrible sentence structure, but I'm reading this as *students* made the "mature decision" and "vacated the space". And the neo-Nazi demonstrators left once the students were gone.

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 11:21 am

gilraen wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 11:16 am This is some horrible sentence structure, but I'm reading this as *students* made the "mature decision" and "vacated the space". And the neo-Nazi demonstrators left once the students were gone.

That's how I read it too.

Amid a surge in neo-Nazi activity across Massachusetts, US Attorney Rachael Rollins said Sunday she was planning to launch a hotline in the coming weeks for people to report white supremacist activities, and pledged federal resources to assist law enforcement.

“We need to expose these cowards,” Rollins said in a statement Sunday.

The announcement came less than a day after about 20 members of a neo-Nazi group held an anti-LGBTQ protest outside a children’s drag queen story hour in Jamaica Plain.
...
She said she stands ready to deploy federal resources to assist local authorities with arrests and prosecutions.

“Every single person deserves to live their life fully and authentically as who they are,” Rollins said. “But, if your authentic self is a bigot that wants to harm, humiliate, and terrorize people, you are not welcome here.”

The efforts by local leaders to combat extremism come amid growing extremist activity across the country, including Massachusetts.

The Anti-Defamation League reported that Massachusetts had the fourth-highest level of white supremacist activity in the country last year, behind Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Texas. Antisemitic incidents in the state also reached a historic high in 2021, the organization reported.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

A nascent neo-Nazi group in New England is attempting to recruit new members. It's doing this by raising its public profile and latching on to Republican talking points that were once considered fringe. From member station WGBH in Boston, here's senior investigative reporter Phillip Martin.

PHILLIP MARTIN, BYLINE: A video posted last summer on social media provided a rare look inside the strategic planning of an upstart neo-Nazi movement. In the video, Chris Hood, the 23-year-old founder of the Nationalist Socialist Club, or NSC-131, gave instructions to a University of Massachusetts Lowell student named Liam McNeil.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CHRIS HOOD: Well, if you're in college, you should be getting together with all the other guys on campus that think like you, start going to all the frat parties and bullying the troops that race mix and just start dominating the parties, take over the campus.

LIAM MCNEIL: We could do that.

MARTIN: Hood and 23-year-old McNeil are part of a tiny but growing clique of white nationalists who have begun loudly announcing their presence across New England.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

HOOD: I mean, we're pretty much like a frat but racist.

MARTIN: Oren Segal describes Massachusetts-based NSC-131 differently.

OREN SEGAL: It's a small neo-Nazi group.

MARTIN: Segal is president of the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism.

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 3:54 pm I can't wait for the Abortionists Hotline to be set up here in South Carolina following very similar logic.

malchior wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 4:01 pm

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 3:54 pm I can't wait for the Abortionists Hotline to be set up here in South Carolina following very similar logic.

FWIW that'd be more like the Stasi hotline. If it happened that'd have little to do with what is happening in Massachusetts and other places where they are seeing a major expansion of recruitment efforts for violent, extremist groups. It makes this more like a terrorist hotline and I'm way more concerned with the reality versus some hypothetical slippery slope argument. They've been ignored as the threat has grown.

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 4:21 pmBut back to the case at hand - it's troubling normalizing calling the cops for people exercising their rights. It's troubling that they are going to show the group "they aren't welcome here"...how exactly do you do that? Do they just observe? Harass them with petty violations no one else gets bothered for? Take contact information and start to create lists? If they are breaking the law absolutely go after them. But this is just a bad look.

Alefroth wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 7:22 pmThose are based on witnessing suspicious activity or wrongdoing, not membership in a group.

malchior wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 9:03 pm I am for one glad that at least one jurisdiction is taking this threat to the public seriously.

Federal and county prosecutors say they are expanding their efforts to combat a recent rise in "hate-based incidents" in the Boston area amid concerns about the possibility of increased activity in the coming months and years.

Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden announced Monday that he is adding civil rights prosecutors at the district and superior court levels due to a rise in white supremacist activity in Boston, including a Patriot Front march over the Fourth of July weekend and a neo-Nazi group's gathering in Jamaica Plain this past weekend. He also cited a neo-Nazi protest at Brigham and Women's Hospital in February and one at the St. Patrick's Day parade in South Boston in March.
...
“It’s clear to me that Massachusetts and Boston have become target destinations for groups that spread hate," Hayden said in a statement. "We saw that over Independence Day weekend with the Patriot Front march in Boston and just this weekend with the NSC-131 gathering in Jamaica Plain. It’s also clear to me that Boston is full of passionate, involved citizens who care deeply about current events and don’t shy away from expressing their views. I want to ensure that everyone involved in the wide public forum of ideas can do so without being harmed by others and without causing anyone harm."

The district attorney's High-Risk Victims Unit, which handles civil rights and hate crimes, will now be called the Civil Rights/High-Risk Victims Unit, and Hayden said he is adding two new prosecutors to the unit -- one to prosecute civil rights cases in Suffolk Superior Court and another to handle these cases in the district and municipal courts.

“We have profound divisions in our society today and groups eager to exploit those divisions toward their malignant ends. We also have a Constitutional duty to protect free speech—up until the point that it turns into threats or violence. I want to make sure my office is vigilant in fair application of the law and fully prepared when prosecuting people who violate anyone’s personal rights,” Hayden said.

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 10:30 pm I get that the First Amendment is about protecting speech that's abhorrent. If these groups want to pull permits and assemble lawfully then they have that right. We just want to know that they're coming, and that they aren't armed.

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 3:35 pm The article is paywalled, but I don't think that's a good thing. Freedom of association and all that jazz. Call your local news, make sure everyone knows about them, but as long as they are doing lawful stuff, I don't think it's right to call the cops. Granted, it seems like they don't stay lawful for long, but merely seeing them should not be cause for a call.

stessier wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 8:45 am

Kraken wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 10:30 pm I get that the First Amendment is about protecting speech that's abhorrent. If these groups want to pull permits and assemble lawfully then they have that right. We just want to know that they're coming, and that they aren't armed.

What part of a group walking the Freedom Trail requires pulling a permit?

Everything you're discussing was used to suppress the civil rights movement in the 60s. That's not a good thing even if it's being used against groups we don't like.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 9:48 am

stessier wrote: ↑Mon Jul 25, 2022 3:35 pm The article is paywalled, but I don't think that's a good thing. Freedom of association and all that jazz. Call your local news, make sure everyone knows about them, but as long as they are doing lawful stuff, I don't think it's right to call the cops. Granted, it seems like they don't stay lawful for long, but merely seeing them should not be cause for a call.

Is it that different than a "there's a drug dealer on the corner" hotline or a catalytic converter thief hotline? People call if they see something potentially suspicious, cops may or may not go investigate. Skateboarders at the loading docks, neighbors arguing, man walking down the street with a rifle...all potentially legal but also possibly indicative of illegal activity.

Police get called all the time for activity that may be legal. Then they may show up to investigate/observe.

LawBeefaroni wrote: ↑Tue Jul 26, 2022 12:03 pm At what point does it go from violent extremism to violent mainstreamism?




We're getting more and more calls to organized violence.

AOC: Can you tell us what that tattoo is?
Sampson: It’s a symbol that has been increasingly embraced by white supremacists

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

malchior wrote: ↑Wed Jul 27, 2022 8:54 pm And the skeptical masses say it's a "stretch" because its just norse runes. Ok sure.

Saw my first US flag + valknut on the road yesterday. The valknut is an old Germanic symbol that has recently been appropriated by American Nazis